Patch
by AquaWolfGirl
Summary: She's always been better at it. Patching hum up. Making the bruise disappear, the bleeding stop, the pain go away just a bit quicker. Can be read as Pinecest, but can also be read as just cute hurt/comfort.


**I don't own Gravity Falls, nor do I claim to. **

**This fic can be interpreted as Pinecest (and I'm not dissuading you from doing so - I adore Pinecest), but can also just be seen as hurt/comfort between two adorable siblings. **

**Favorites rock, reviews make me grin like an idiot. **

**XoXoX**

She's always been better at it than he has.

The first time she patches him up, they're five. Maybe six. He jumped from the stairs, miscalculated, and landed directly on a Lego. His knee had a square shaped bruise for about a week, and a hefty scratch to match.

Mabel had run into the other room, grabbed their play doctor kit, and returned with a lab coat and fake glasses. He sat there, tears running down his face as she attempted to 'fix' him with a combination of a backwards stethoscope and a plastic cuff bandaid. Eventually their mom came out, bearing a real first aid kit. And she let Mabel help clean the scrape, put Neosporin on it and slap a band-aid on his tender skin.

While the Neosporin helped the stinging, it was the kiss (complete with loud 'MWAH!') that made the tears stop.

By age nine, he's had enough bruises and bumps to know the routine. But he always manages to make the band-aid too tight, slather on too much or too little antibacterial gel, or in general make it worse. So when he returns from the skatepark with a shallow gash on his head and scraped palms, he goes right to Mabel. To have it done right.

She doesn't reach for the play doctor kit anymore, knowing where they kept the kit in the closet.

He returns to school the next day with a Cinderella band-aid on his forehead. And yeah, he gets laughed at a bit, but he doesn't really mind because it reminds him of the girl who put it there.

Uncle Stan's first aid kit contains little more than an Ace bandage, medical tape and a bottle of vodka. But Mabel somehow makes it work after a particularly nasty fight with a were-somethingorother. He has scrapes on his hands and knees and he doesn't even notice the one on his forearm until he lifts it and sees the blood dripping from his elbow.

She hums as she works, cutting the Ace bandage and making makeshift band-aids with the tape and bits of the cloth. It works better than he thought it would. The vodka stings, but he'd rather it be clean and stinging than infected. Once again, she kisses the skin next to the bandages when she's done, insisting they heal 39.67896% faster (he knows she just made that up off the top of her head). He doesn't complain, smiling a bit as she attempts to figure out how to best kiss his scraped elbow.

Her (ex?)boyfriend's an ass. That's all he thinks about as she dabs at his split lip, chastising him for being so stupid as she wipes up the blood from his nose at the same time.

Dipper knows how much effort goes into her sweaters. How she'll scout the local craft and hobby stores for the perfect ribbon, the perfect color sequins, the perfect yarn. He knows how long she stays up working on a new patch or a new secret pocket for lipgloss. Sure, sometimes they're garish and ridiculous, but they're also something that makes her smile and because of that he loves the sweaters.

So when he sees her lip wobble after Erik calls her newest creation immature and stupid, he goes with his gut and punches the bastard right in the jaw.

"It's not worth it," she mutters as she wipes the blood from his chin.

He shrugs, but he knows it was worth it. Because at the end of the day, she's taking care of him instead of that asshole.

He has to patch her up this time. Vampire's aren't as romantic as Twilight makes them out to be. He's seriously debating throwing a nail file at one of them the next time they see one.

There are bruises on Mabel's arms, hand-shaped, and they go with the scratches from the man's long nails.

She sniffles as he dabs at her skin, her torn sweater on the floor beside her.

"You're going to have to guide me. You're the one who patches me up. I've never done this," he says, trying to make her laugh.

He only gets a small, sad smile in response, forced around the hair she's currently chewing.

He feels horrible.

Her first vampire boyfriend, and he turned out to be an attempted rapist.

He patches her in silence after that. Because he's still an awkward teenager, and can't think of anything to say to comfort his own sister.

He finishes her left arm, gently pressing the band-aid to the scratch on her shoulder. He brushes his lips across the pink bandage.

"Heals faster," he mutters as he kisses the rest of the bandages. There are a lot of them.

That gets a smile. A true Mabel smile that has her taking the strand of hair out of her mouth.

He holds her afterwards. When all the scratches are covered in pink and blue and white and glitter. They take a Sharpie to them. Dipper draws goofy little smiley faces. Mabel draws… well, anything she can think of. Including a burrito. Where that came from, he isn't sure.

"You've gotta get hurt again," she says, after a moment. "It's tradition."

He snorts. "I'm not sure that's the definition of tradition." But he presses his nail to the skin of his thigh and waits until it hurts and turns red. He can barely see the blood - he could wipe it off and he'd be fine. But he steals a pink band-aid from the box and hands it to her.

"Patch me up?"


End file.
